


The Rest

by MrsWhozeewhatsis (OxfordCommaLover)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2017 Louden Swain SPN Mini Bang, Angst, Gen, Rufus Turner's Cabin, Rufus tries to be nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:06:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordCommaLover/pseuds/MrsWhozeewhatsis
Summary: It’s all about what you give away and what you keep for yourself.





	The Rest

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for the 2017 Louden Swain SPN Mini Bang and is actually for one of the Station Breaks songs. God, I love this song. If you haven’t heard the album, GET IT. It’s PHENOMENAL. Anyway, special thanks to the best betas a girl could ask for, both of whom challenge me and make me better, @littlegreenplasticsoldier and @manawhaat.

She stared at herself in the mirror, taking in the miles of white beaded satin while sounds of her best girlfriends decorating the sanctuary of the church drifted in through the door. Everything was perfect. The dress complimented her figure and showed just enough skin to not be _too much_. Every one of her closest friends had been able to come to help her organize the million and one details that had to be nailed down before the big day came tomorrow.

Her fiancé was perfect. He’d gone to every cake tasting, made suggestions about songs for their first dance, and wrangled his groomsmen like he’d been a cattle rancher in a former life. Her mother had completed the seating chart and paid the deposits on everything, and her father had laughed at them both as they debated whether Aunt Elizabeth should sit near Uncle Seamus or if it might spark a food fight. Everything was as she had dreamed it would be the first time she’d wondered what her wedding day might be like.

Except, instead of smiling, she was staring blankly at her reflection, wondering why she wasn’t happy.

She should be crying tears of joy or giggling uncontrollably or just too giddy with happy excitement to speak, but none of that was happening. She wasn’t sad or nervous, not worried, anxious, or even depressed.

She was nothing.

That first day she’d pictured her wedding day, she’d doomed herself to this. After finishing her high school physics final early, she’d made intricate notes about flowers and dresses and attendants. She’d stared out the window at the raindrops landing in puddles in the courtyard and pictured her perfect life. Every detail was planned out on that college-ruled page and it became her roadmap to this very moment.

The plan was drawn up meticulously. She’d meet a nice boy, be married by 25, and have her 2.3 children before she was 30. Her father would walk her down the aisle to a mystery man in a smart blue tux. The music would swell as she smiled at everyone she knew until she reached her soon-to-be husband. They would buy a nice little house with a big backyard for their dog to run around in, and they would invite the neighbors over for barbecues in the summer. This is where it would all start and everything was exactly on track.

So why wasn’t she happy?

Okay, so her future mother-in-law wasn’t exactly thrilled. Instead of 25, they were only 20, and they had decided to put off college in favor of attending the University of Life. She thought they were too young to get married, “Too innocent,” _Hmph_. Little did she know, the accelerated timeline for their plans had been sparked by a pregnancy scare. _So much for innocent._ By the time they found out there was no baby, the church was booked and deposits were down on a banquet hall and caterer and florist and string quartet and a million other things you wouldn’t expect to require a deposit but do.

Which led to her standing here, staring at some bizarre version of herself who was wearing a wedding a dress and pretending to be happy.

“Linda, dear, we need your opinion on which pews to decorate with the tulle and which to leave blank. Every pew looks too busy, and no one can agree on whether it should just be every other pew, or every third pew, or just a couple of pews around where the family will be sitting….” Her mother’s voice droned on from the other side of the door, but she tuned her out.

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. The dress was suffocating her, squeezing her ribcage until she could no longer fill her lungs with air. In a frenzy, she ripped the dress from her body, not caring when the fabric tore at the seams. Even when the dress was lying on the floor, completely ruined, she couldn’t stop trembling and gasping for air. In her panic, she threw on her regular clothes and stuffed the dress haphazardly in the closet, rolling it up so bits wouldn’t stick out the door and give itself away. She searched the room for pen and paper but didn’t find any. Unable to stand being there a minute longer, she decided that she could send a note later and peered carefully out the door before sneaking out where her mother’s footsteps had just echoed.

The hallway was clear, giving her a straight shot to the outside world, to freedom, and she took it at a dead run. Her mad dash was stopped just outside the main doors by none other than her husband-to-be.

“Hey, beautiful! Linda? What’s wrong?” He rubbed her shoulders in that perfect way he had that always calmed her down, but it didn’t work this time. Her words erupted out her mouth almost too fast for him to understand.

“I’m so sorry, David, I just can’t do it. It’s too soon, we’re too young, I’m not ready, I don’t know what I was thinking, really, anyway. Just take all of it, I don’t want any of it, the dress, the decorations, the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, and oh, God, your mother-I-I’m proving her right! She said we were too young and she was right, and oh, God, David, I’m so sorry. I just have to go, I’m so sorry.”

David stood in front of the church where he had thought he was going to get married, his bride’s parting words flowing over him like rushing flood waters, and he watched her, helplessly glued to his spot while she jumped in her car and disappear into the night.

***

The keys in his hand gleamed in the firelight, mocking him and his misery. The moon had already risen, but it wasn’t quite dark enough for stars to come out, just yet. The birds around the lake mourned with him while his heart lay salted and burned on the ground. His unlikely savior, a man by the name of Rufus, stood beside him, silent. It’s not like there was much to say by then, anyway.

It had taken years for David to get over being left at the altar. Okay, so she left him the night before, but it was only a few feet away from the altar. He had lost himself in drinking and gambling for a long time, staying in posh hotels when his luck was high and in his car when it was not. Then he met her. She was an angel. She gave him a reason to stop looking at the world through the bottom of a bottle and start seeing everything with clarity. He sobered up. He got a job. He paid off his debts. When he was finally a man he felt was worthy of her love, he proposed, and they got married. A year later, his son was born.

They had bought this cabin because it was “rustic”. It had seemed like a nice place to get away from it all, whatever it might be that they felt they needed to get away from. It was small, but well-built, with just enough amenities for it to be a step above camping. They had come up here a few days ago to get away from the man now standing next to him; to get away from the crazy stories he spewed and the unpredictable spark in his eyes. For the first time, part of David was glad the outside world had found him here. Another part of him still wished it hadn’t. The rational part of his brain told him he’d be dead if it weren’t for Rufus, though his heart would never understand.

Who could understand when a strange man knocked on your door and warned you that your wife was a monster? That in a few days, when she turned thirty, she would hunger for human flesh and not care whose flesh it was? Rufus claimed he was a hunter of monsters and had inherited the job of making sure that David’s wife never hurt anyone like her father had. It was so far-fetched, no one could blame him for not believing, for taking his wife and child and running to the safest place he knew.

Rufus had found them, he was a hunter and tracker, after all, but not before his wife had killed their son in her animalistic mania. David escaped the house, and when she followed him, Rufus had done what he’d had to do. David watched his wife die in agony, an inhuman roar bellowing from her throat as she was engulfed in flames. After her final breath was gone, Rufus had spread salt and gasoline over the remains where they lay, burning them again until there was nothing left but ash.

David stood in the driveway next to his car, staring through the last wisps of smoke at the cabin that had been his escape, cheeks wet with quiet tears. He ripped his eyes away from the myriad of memories to tug at the keys on his keyring. When Rufus approached him, the cabin’s keys were no longer attached.

“You know, before my son was born, we once tried to have guests up here. We thought we could have a bonfire and Debra planned all of this fancy schmancy stuff as a kind of counterbalance to the dirt and the backwoods environment. You know, hors d'oeuvres plated on pieces of bark and matched with expensive wines and things like that. It went horribly, of course. Everyone got eaten alive by the mosquitos, two people caught ticks, one of whom ended up with some freaky disease no one’s heard of, and almost everyone got food poisoning because the electric went out and the fridge warmed up without us realizing. That was when we decided that this place was just for us. No one else. This was our respite, and, maybe we’d retire here someday.”

Rufus stood in front of David, head hung low and hands on his hips, letting the quiet linger for another moment before he shook his head and said, “I owe you an apology. I was trying to be, well, nice. I’ve been trying this, you know, kinder, gentler approach to,” he waved a hand in the air, “everything.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, cleared the lump in his throat away, and continued. “I heard a rumor that they don’t always turn. Like, maybe it’s a recessive gene in some, and I thought- against my better instincts- I thought I should give her a chance.” Rufus heaved a breath and let it out slowly. “I was wrong.” He stared off into the distance to keep from having to look the grieving man in the eye. “They always turn.”

David turned to Rufus, wiping his face. “I’m sorry for not listening. I should have listened.”

Rufus waved off the apology. “I’d do the same in your shoes.”

David held out the keys to the cabin for Rufus to take. “Take ‘em. Take it all. Take the cabin, take the dock, take the boat, take everything. I don’t ever want to see this place again, and you can use it when you’re not hunting. It’s safe here, if you don’t bring the bad stuff with you.”

Rufus took the keys with wide eyes and a slack jaw, but before he could thank David, the man was in his car and backing out of the driveway. The old hunter hoped he’d never hear the man’s name again, but somehow thought he would.

“Kinder and gentler can bite my fabulous black ass.”

***

Sam leaned up against the Impala, arms crossed, waiting for Dean to stop flirting with the waitress in the diner. They’d spent most of the afternoon in an abandoned factory in an industrial park outside of town dealing with a vengeful spirit with an older hunter named David. The ghost had been difficult to track down, and David had called Bobby for help. Bobby called John, who sent Dean and Sam since he was wrapped up in a ghoul hunt a state over. With the hunt done, they’d all decided to share a meal before splitting town, but Sam suspected he and Dean might be staying over one more night.

David exited the building, shaking his head with a smile, no doubt at Dean’s antics. He approached the car, giving her another appreciative look like the one that had endeared him to Dean. He stood next to Sam and leaned against the car with him, matching his stance with arms crossed.

“So, Sam, you’re what, 17, 18, now?” he asked, looking the boy up and down, like his height could truthfully tell his age.

“Sixteen,” Sam replied, hunching down even further into himself to try and look more his age and less like the man everyone expected him to be.

David nodded. “My son woulda been about your age by now.”

Sam glanced at the old hunter, knowing better to push at old wounds, no matter how curious he was. Every hunter has a story, and none of them are fairy tales.

“It’s a good age. Got the world on a string and the energy and optimism to do something about it.” Sam could hear the nostalgia in his sigh. “So, what’s your plan for taking on the world in a couple of years?”

Sam shrugged. “Family business, I guess?” He could feel David’s sudden and intense attention, but he tried to ignore it.

“Sam, you are the smartest kid I’ve ever seen. You figured out who the ghost was in half the time I took to even try and fail, and you figured out what he was tethered to, even though he could have been attached to anything in that factory. Are you really going to waste that hunting?”

Sam shrugged and stared at the ground. “Pretty sure that’s what my Dad wants me to do.”

David heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s bad enough that old folks like me get roped into this life, but you’re a kid. You should be going to college, getting drunk at all-night keggers and weekend craft beer fests, pledging frats, and sleeping through your first class of the day. And you’re a smart kid, Sam. You’re way too smart to be caught up in this hell of a life.”

Sam shrugged again, not sure what to say in the face of someone so vehemently stating what he’d always wanted to hear, but could never allow himself to even admit to wanting. He kicked a stone that had the unfortunate luck to be sitting on the ground in front of him and watched it bounce across the parking lot towards the diner door where Dean was finally emerging, triumphant, with a napkin in his hand.

“You remember what I said, Sam. You get out. Get out and don’t look back. Go be a doctor or a lawyer, and help hunters out that way, but don’t be this when you can be so much more,” David spoke only loud enough for Sam to hear, with his face an indifferent mask as Dean approached. “You got the girl’s number, Dean? Good for you, kid!” The older hunter gave Dean a high-five and a slap on the back as congratulations.

An hour later, after they’d said their goodbyes to David, and Dean had run off to his date with the waitress, Sam sat in the motel room looking out the window. For a crappy motel, it had a pretty good view of the setting sun as it sunk below the horizon. He considered David’s words seriously. It was only the second time in his life someone had told him he could, and should, be more than just a hunter. He could never tell Dad or Dean, but it all suddenly seemed possible. He could go to college, maybe Stanford, become a doctor or a lawyer, and help hunters that way. He could have a normal life, but still save lives like Dad had always wanted.

When Sam was done examining the idea from all sides, polishing it until it shone, he tucked it deep into his heart where no one could find it. He was going to keep this for himself, do this for himself, and Dean could have the salt, the silver bullets, and all the rest.

* * *

**Lyrics for The Rest by The Station Breaks**

_It was the eve of the day_  
Dreamt up in the summer rain  
Scrawled in italics  
On her old physics page  
Now it’s finally here  
And the flowers in place  
And she found herself wondering  
Why she wasn’t feeling anything 

 _She said, “you take the rest_  
The tuxes and vests  
The groomsmen like knights  
Unaware of their quest  
Take the ribbons and bows  
And your mother, god knows  
She never approved  
Of our innocence  
Yeah, you take the rest." 

 _The cabin was safe_  
Secluded in shade  
The water was still  
The loons echoed refrains  
But he would not return  
Memories still burned  
The moon was like fire  
Set to take him alive 

 _He said, "You can have the rest_  
Take the moss-covered fence  
Take the dock and the boats  
And those pesky insects  
And take the angry dinner guests  
Ooo all burned and tasteless  
The barbs by the fire  
That never made any sense  
Yeah, you can have the rest." 

 _It was a family truck_  
Inherited by luck  
In the industrial park  
He worked through the closing bell  
And this old man said  
"Boy, get a college ed  
You’re way too smart  
To be lost in this hell." 

 _But he said, "You can have the rest_  
The diplomas and tests  
The all-night keggers  
And the weekend beer fests  
Take fraternity row  
All too drunk to know  
The being late to class  
Aimless and dense" 

 _I watched the sun set_  
Deep in the west  
And I’m saving my best  
For the light in my chest  
And you can take the rest


End file.
